The lens doesn't feel loose and it doesn't grind, it just feels like there's no lubricant at all in the focus helicoid. There's a few repair joints around here, I'll drop it off some time when I'm dong shooting pictures with it!

I tested it out against the ZF 50mm f/1.4 Planar on a D700 and they look pretty similar as far as sharpness goes wide open, the Zeiss is alot warmer, but I guess the Nikkor was designed to let in more blue light becuase B&W films are more sensitive to the blue channel..so i'm told. Stopped down the Zeiss has a TON more contrast though. As in slap-in-the-face-you'd-think-there's-fungus-in-the-nikkor difference between the two. It was shocking.